U.S. Dep't of State, 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report: Guinea-Bissau

GUINEA-BISSAU (Tier 2 Watch List) The Government of Guinea-Bissau does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so. The government made key achievements during the reporting period; therefore Guinea-Bissau was upgraded to Tier 2 Watch List. These efforts included identifying and referring more trafficking victims to services and providing in-kind support to NGOs assisting trafficking victims for the first time in five years. The government investigated more trafficking cases and increased anti-trafficking training for front-line officials.

It convened its national anti-trafficking committee regularly, adopted a new anti-trafficking NAP, and allocated dedicated funding for awareness raising efforts. Despite these achievements, the government did not prosecute any alleged traffickers for the fifth consecutive year, and it has never convicted a trafficker under its anti-trafficking law. Official corruption and complicity, especially in the judiciary, remained a significant concern and impeded anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts. Victim identification and services remained inadequate.

PRIORITIZED RECOMMENDATIONS: Increase efforts to investigate, prosecute, and convict traffickers, including corrupt Quranic teachers who exploit boys in forced begging, as well as complicit officials, and seek adequate penalties for convicted traffickers, which should involve significant prison terms. * Direct law enforcement to investigate all allegations of human trafficking, including child forced begging, and hold government officials accountable for interfering in ongoing investigations or impeding prosecutions. * Cease using extra-judicial or administrative remedies to resolve human trafficking cases. * Strengthen the National Institute for Women and Children’s (IMC’s) authority to coordinate the government’s anti-trafficking response across government agencies, including by allocating dedicated funds for its anti-trafficking activities. * Finalize and implement standard procedures to systematically identify trafficking victims, including among vulnerable populations such as children forced to beg, child laborers, domestic workers, individuals in commercial sex, and Cuban overseas workers. * Fully implement the NRM by training law enforcement, judicial officials, social workers, and civil society on the procedures to refer all identified trafficking victims to care. * Train the national guard, judicial police, and local police on identifying trafficking crimes and procedures for referring cases to the judicial police for criminal investigation. * In collaboration with civil society, increase the quantity and quality of services available to all trafficking victims, including adults. * Strengthen cooperation with the Government of Senegal to repatriate and reintegrate any Bissau-Guinean trafficking victims exploited in Senegal, especially child forced begging victims, and investigate cross-border trafficking networks. * Provide resources to the judicial police to expand its area of operation. * Significantly increase efforts to raise public awareness of human trafficking, especially forced begging and child sex trafficking.

PROSECUTION

The government modestly increased law enforcement efforts. Public Law 12/2011 criminalized sex trafficking and labor trafficking and prescribed penalties of three to 15 years’ imprisonment and the confiscation of any proceeds from the crime. These penalties were sufficiently stringent and, with regard to sex trafficking, commensurate with penalties prescribed for other grave crimes, such as rape. The government reported investigating eight labor trafficking cases, compared with investigating three cases during the previous reporting period.

While the government did not report any prosecutions for the fifth consecutive year, it did initiate preliminary procedures in three cases referred by law enforcement. The government did not report whether the three cases referred for prosecution in the previous reporting period remained pending. The government has never convicted a trafficker under the anti-trafficking law. Despite the prevalence of Bissau-Guinean boys exploited in Senegal and other neighboring countries for forced begging, the government did not report cooperating with foreign counterparts on law enforcement investigations.

The government did not report any investigations, prosecutions, or convictions of government officials complicit in human trafficking crimes; however, official corruption and complicity in trafficking crimes remained concerns, inhibiting law enforcement action during the year. The judicial system lacked sufficient personnel and resources to function effectively, and corruption remained pervasive. Observers alleged government officials interfered in investigations and derailed prosecutions of politically connected traffickers in exchange for bribes. Judges reportedly did not take trafficking cases seriously and were often influenced by imams to drop child forced begging cases.

Justice system officials did not demonstrate high-level will to hold traffickers accountable, and many officials viewed human trafficking, especially child forced begging, as a cultural practice instead of a crime. The judicial police had a specialized unit to investigate trafficking cases; however, it had limited coverage outside the capital and did not have a dedicated budget. The national guard patrolled Guinea-Bissau’s borders and had a unit dedicated to investigating crimes involving women and children, including trafficking; however, it also did not have a dedicated budget. The judicial police relied on reports from NGOs or interceptions at the border to identify potential trafficking cases instead of proactively conducting anti-trafficking law enforcement operations.

The national guard generally followed procedures to refer potential trafficking cases to the judicial police for investigation; however, local police in rural areas did not consistently follow the referral procedures. The judicial police provided some training to local police in rural and border areas on investigating human trafficking cases. The IMC also provided anti-trafficking training to front-line officials, including the national guard, migration and border police, judiciary police, and justice system assistants. This was an increase compared with providing limited anti-trafficking training to some border officials during the previous reporting period.

However, observers noted training for law enforcement, including the judicial police’s and national guard’s designated anti-trafficking units, was insufficient. Some law enforcement and judicial officials remained unaware of the 2011 anti-trafficking law. Police and judges often settled trafficking cases through informal resolution mechanisms rather than the formal justice system.

PROTECTION

The government increased protection efforts. The government reported identifying and referring 155 child forced labor victims to NGOs for care, compared with identifying and referring 57 child forced labor victims during the previous reporting period. However, as in previous years, officials did not report identifying any adult trafficking victims. The national guard intercepted at least 200 children at the border, which likely included trafficking victims.

The government continued implementing its NRM to refer vulnerable children, including potential trafficking victims, to NGOs for care. High illiteracy rates, including among security services, hampered the government’s ability to finalize and implement written victim identification procedures; draft victim identification procedures, compiled in previous reporting periods with the assistance of an international organization, remained unfinished. One NGO provided shelter services to 179 vulnerable children, including potential trafficking victims. A foreign government repatriated 78 Bissau-Guinean boys exploited in begging in Senegal without the government’s support.

Protection actors reported some families returned their children to traffickers after they were removed from situations of forced begging and repatriated. The National Institute for Women and Children under the Ministry of Women, Family, and Social Solidarity (Ministry of Women) was responsible for coordinating victim services and referral among various entities; however, it lacked sufficient funding and resources. The government relied on international organizations and local NGOs to provide nearly all victim services, including reintegration support, shelter, medical services, and legal assistance; these NGOs subsequently relied on international donors for funding. However, for the first time in five years, the government reported providing in-kind support to NGOs assisting trafficking victims, including food, hygiene kits, and clothing.

Three NGO shelters were accessible to child trafficking victims but were severely overcrowded and underfunded; one shelter provided specific services to trafficking victims. Children typically received short-term housing, followed by reintegration support. Adult trafficking victims could access NGO-operated shelters for vulnerable individuals, but neither the government nor civil society reported identifying or referring any adult victims to care. Foreign national victims had access to the same services as Bissau-Guinean victims.

The government reported Bissau-Guinean and Senegalese border officials routinely cooperated to repatriate Bissau-Guinean child trafficking victims intercepted at the border. The IMC began developing a child labor and trafficking case management database, which will include a component on the NRM and victim referral. The government did not have victim-witness assistance procedures to support victim participation in the criminal justice process. The government drafted legislation intended to increase protections for vulnerable children, including provision of victim-witness assistance; the bill remained pending before parliament at the end of the reporting period.

Victims could not obtain restitution or file civil suits against their traffickers. The government did not provide legal alternatives to the removal of foreign victims to countries where they may face hardship or retribution. Due to a lack of formal identification procedures, authorities may have detained some unidentified trafficking victims.

PREVENTION

The government increased efforts to prevent trafficking. The inter-ministerial committee, led by the IMC and including government agencies, NGOs, and religious groups, met regularly. However, the committee lacked dedicated funding, which weakened its effectiveness and ability to coordinate national anti-trafficking efforts. The government, in collaboration with an international organization, finalized and approved a new 2024-2028 NAP.

The government allocated 525,000 West African CFA francs (FCFA) ($890) to the Ministry of Women for awareness activities on human trafficking and child labor; this compared with no funding allocated for awareness activities during previous years. In collaboration with civil society, it conducted public radio campaigns and displayed murals featuring trafficking awareness messages. The Ministry of Interior held the government’s first forum with religious leaders focused on child protection issues, including human trafficking. The judicial police operated a hotline for crime victims, but it did not report identifying any trafficking victims from hotline calls.

The labor inspectorate, housed within the Ministry of Labor, Civil Service and Public Administration, lacked funding, resources, and training to investigate labor trafficking cases nationwide; inspectors did not report identifying any potential child trafficking or child labor cases. The government did not prohibit worker-paid recruitment fees, which increased labor migrants’ vulnerability to trafficking. The government did not make efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts. The IMC and the Ministry of Tourism had a code of conduct against sexual exploitation in the tourism sector in the Bijagos islands, Bubaque, Sao Domingos, and Bissau.

The code included provisions for raising public awareness of child sex trafficking and increasing awareness of hotel workers and tourism labor inspectors to combat these crimes; however, the government did not report conducting any implementation activities. The government did not provide anti-trafficking training to its diplomatic personnel. TRAFFICKING PROFILE: As reported over the past five years, human traffickers exploit domestic and foreign victims in Guinea-Bissau, and traffickers exploit victims from Guinea-Bissau abroad. Child forced begging is the most prevalent form of human trafficking.

Corrupt Quranic teachers exploit their students in forced begging in informal Quranic schools ( daaras ) and do not provide an education. The traffickers are principally men from the Bafata and Gabu regions – often former students or men who claim to be working for a Quranic teacher – and are generally well-known within the communities in which they operate. Corrupt Quranic teachers exploit Guinea-Bissau’s weak institutions and porous borders to transport large numbers of Bissau-Guinean boys to Senegal – and to a lesser extent Mali, Guinea, and The Gambia – for forced begging in exploitative daaras. Corrupt Quranic teachers also force Bissau-Guinean, Guinean, Gambian, and Sierra Leonean boys to beg in Bissau.

In some cases, due to lack of economic or educational alternatives, families willingly send their children to Senegal knowing they may be forced to beg. Traffickers, including corrupt Quranic teachers, force Bissau-Guinean and other West African boys to harvest cashews during Guinea-Bissau’s annual harvest, and some boys recruited for work in the harvest are then forced to beg. Children placed in apprenticeships by their families in fishing, construction, and mechanical shops are vulnerable to labor trafficking. Traffickers exploit boys in forced labor in street vending and shoe-shining in Bissau.

Traffickers exploit Bissau-Guinean girls in domestic servitude and in sex trafficking in bars, nightclubs, and hotels in Bissau. There are reports tourists from Europe, South America, and North America traveling to Bafata for hunting or fishing trips exploit girls in sex trafficking, and tourists reportedly exploit children in sex trafficking in the Bijagos, an archipelago largely devoid of government and law enforcement presence. Traffickers exploit Bissau-Guinean boys in agriculture, mining, and street vending in Senegal, especially around the southern cities of Kolda and Ziguinchor. Traffickers exploit Bissau-Guinean girls in sex trafficking and forced labor in street vending and domestic work in Guinea, The Gambia, and Senegal.

Senegalese trafficking networks recruit Bissau-Guinean girls for modeling jobs or traveling football clubs and exploit them in sex trafficking. Traffickers fraudulently recruit and exploit Bissau-Guinean women in domestic servitude in Guinea-Bissau and abroad. Low birth registration rates increase vulnerability to trafficking, especially among children. Officials report the free movement of ECOWAS citizens makes it easier for traffickers to cross West African borders.

Bissau-Guinean migrants traveling through Libya are vulnerable to trafficking. According to sources, there were 34 government-affiliated Cuban medical professionals working in Guinea-Bissau. Government-affiliated Cuban workers in Guinea-Bissau were forced to work by the Cuban government. On This Page search > < GUINEA-BISSAU (Tier 2 Watch List) PRIORITIZED RECOMMENDATIONS: PROSECUTION PROTECTION PREVENTION TRAFFICKING PROFILE: Tags Bureau of African Affairs Guinea-Bissau Human Trafficking Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons Reports